In general, the inventive arrangements relate to systems and methods for controlling an alarm state, such as volume, emitted by audible sound producing devices located within and external of a room of a medical patient. More specifically, they relate to systems and methods that control the volume of alarms based on the presence or absence of caregivers within the patient's room.
In healthcare facilities, it is, of course, very common to have local alarm producing devices located in the room of a patient. For example, an alarm producing device may be incorporated into a patient monitor to monitor certain conditions of the patient. Oftentimes, the patient monitor includes an audible alarm that sounds when the condition being monitored is outside of certain predetermined limits. That alarm is generally sufficiently loud and conveys a sense of urgency, such that there is an immediate recognition of an alarm condition that enables caregivers to take appropriate action to understand and alleviate the alarm condition.
Alternatively and/or additionally, other alarm producing devices may also be included within a patient's room, such as, for example, a bed alarm, other medical equipment, a ventilator, infusion pump, and/or the like, and alarms may be emitted based on sensed parameters, in response, for example, to a condition of a medical apparatus used in connection with the patient, some incident related to the medical apparatus, such as a power failure or other failure, an undesired or noteworthy change in the patient's environment, and/or the like.
One of the problems, however, with such audible alarms is that the alarm producing device, such as within the patient monitor, is, for convenience, often located within the room where the patient is located, and they are often located in relative close proximity to the patient. As such, the sound of the alarm can create an immediate stimulus to the patient and have a negative impact thereon—i.e., numerous alarm sounds can have a negative physiological impact on the patient and create additional stress in the patient, who may already be in a stressed condition.
As a result, when a caregiver is present in the patient's room, many alarm producing devices have a mute function so that the caregiver can immediately mute the sound of the alarm. However, if the caregiver is not present at the time of the audible alarm, then the continued sound of the alarm can create the aforementioned negative effect on the patient.
Accordingly, it would be particularly advantageous to have a device and/or method that can alleviate the negative stimulus that can be created by an audible alarm within a patient's room whenever a caregiver is not present within the room, yet still retain the safety of allowing the caregivers to hear and/or recognize the audible alarm from the sound producing devices within the patient's room.